


If you’re playing a prank now it would be a good time to stop

by Jitter



Series: My First Everything [1]
Category: The Dresden Files - All Media Types, The Dresden Files - Jim Butcher
Genre: AU, AU ending, Angst, F/M, Sad, Tumblr Prompt, i miss you meme
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-18
Updated: 2014-12-18
Packaged: 2018-03-02 02:26:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 791
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2796314
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jitter/pseuds/Jitter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What Harry would say about Elaine one year, five years, and ten years after her death<br/>v: My First Everything</p>
            </blockquote>





	If you’re playing a prank now it would be a good time to stop

**Author's Note:**

  * For [SiriuslySmart](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SiriuslySmart/gifts).



**Year One**

He never thought he’d spend his twins’ first birthday at a graveyard.

He had left Lilian and Malcolm with Maggie -she  _was_  an adult after all as she said. - and had gone to Graceland on foot. 

In the past year he had found himself thinking of something funny and casually casting his thought at her, expecting the warm inflections of her thoughts to fill his mind.

It never happened of course.

The city seemed to be consumed by fog and a fine snow was falling and he wondered if his Queen remembered and that was her way of paying her respects for his dead wife.

He laughed. Fat chance.

He realized that not fog but tears were blurring his vision as he knelt down by the headstone.

He had paid for a plot next to his own pre-made grave and had a headstone made similar to his own.

_Elaine Mallory - My first Everything_

He had even had a pentacle carved on it, foiled with silver to match his own. 

It hadn’t helped. It hadn’t brought her closer. Nothing would bring her close again. 

"Hell’s Bells, Mallory." he breathed, "I love these kids to fucking pieces but I would never— It might make me a bad person to say this but had I know you’d die to bring them in the world I’d never —"

He felt like shit.

"Hell’s Bells you crazy, stubborn woman." a sob escaped his throat as he sniffed and looked away, "I love you okay. Never stopped loving you. never will."

**Year Five**

The twins had already started school and the day had been crazy, what with bringing the kids all the way from the Never-Never to Chicago to take them to school. He was getting older too, not that it showed, he looked merely like he was in his late thirties, still even though he had passed his half century mark a year ago.

It was very late at night when he managed to make his way to Elaine’s grave. He lay next to it, spreading his duster on the cold hard ground and he started talking to her. He said a lot of things, simple things, how his life was going on, how the twins were growing.

"Malcolm looks like he’s a male version of you. Has your spirit too, your mannerisms. It hurts seeing him. It hurts that I still think I’ll open the door and find you and Mouse parenting Maggie." he rolled around and opened one of Mac’s microbrews and set it on the grave, he then opened a second one and took a long swig from it. "Dammit, Elaine, I was always supposed to go first. What with my life and all." he shook his head, "I had to leave our home behind. We— we had to spend each day hiding and sneaking around to get there. It was not safe to sleep anymore. They— They bombed it Elaine. It just so happened that we were at Alyssa’s birthday party." he took a hard swallow. "Molly  had Mab agree to take the twins to live with me in Arctis Tor. I know you wouldn’t approve but hell’s bells, you did it with Summer. It seems like ironically poetic that our kids get to hide in Winter, see?"

"Maggie’s been travelling for the past year with Alyssa. I never thought they’d stay together this long. They’ve last been in Hawaii. They sent a card. She says hi. They both say hi."

**Year Ten**

"Where the fuck are you Elaine?" he yelled in the dark, bringing sympathetic and not-so sympathetic stares from the other people in the graveyard.

"Come on now," he said crazily, he was drunk. "The last time you supposedly died it took you ten years to come back to me so where the fuck are you now?"

He kicked a potted flower next to her grave, shattering the clay of the pot to pieces.

"You can’t die. You proved it once when you came back from Summer. You can’t be dead, Elaine. It’s not fair. It’s not fucking fair."

He sat by her grave, his back resting on her headstone, looking at the sky above.

"Lilian and Malcolm showed their first signs of magic last week, I’m going to get them apprenticed to Ramirez. You liked Carlos, right?" he said softly. "I know you never liked the Council but the war is getting worse and I am away all the time. I hate leaving our kids alone in Winter. I hate it. This way at least they’ll spend some time with mortals."

He stopped talking for a while and turned at her grave.

"If you’re playing a prank, that would be a good moment to come back to me."


End file.
